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infused piano and horn led rendition of Chuck Berry’s ‘Christmas’, is well, saucy! A
coolly grooving, baritone saxophone leads the way on Bobby Gentillo’s guitar rich

rendition of the James Brown classic ‘Santa Claus Go Straight to the Ghetto’, the
funky saxophone and harmonica end piece is equally satisfying. Croatian harmon-
ica player Tomislav Goluban delivers a splendidly warm and sweetly rolling ver-

sion ‘Amazing Grace II.’ Mark Cameron gives us a richly melancholic talking blues
monologue on the troubles and travails of those delivering the presents to all; with

‘Rick’s Place (Holiday Mix)’. The live rendition of ‘Merry Christmas Baby’ by Laura
Tate is another rolling blues with rich, tasty piano and horns, her hot and almost
breathless vocal says it all. The powerful, slow blues of the stunning and rightly
emotive ‘Peace and Goodwill’ is Vaneese Thomas’s original plea, for the simple

enactment of these words. ‘I’ll Be Home For Christmas’, by Peter Veteska is a crisp,
stark piano and vocal piece that simply, says it all. Tiffany Pollock and Eric Johan-

son stamp their own indelible mark as they wonderfully recreate the magically
ephemeral feel that Joni Mitchell exuded in her original version of ‘River’. ‘Even
Santa Gets The Blues’, from the Texas Horns with Teresa James on very sultry
vocals tells the less than festive tale of death, destruction, woes and the blues as

he/we battle life as we know (and create) it.

Just like Christmas, Happy and Sad!

Brian Harman

Big Harp George—Does Christmas—Blue Mountain
Records BMR DD06

Big Harp George (George Bisharat) is a San Francisco
Bay Area blues singer, songwriter, and chromatic har-
monica player. Who, in a previous life was a defence

lawyer, he also is a professor of law at UC Hastings
College of the law but, obviously prefers to play the
blues and armed with his Jazz sounding chromatic har-

monica he plays it pretty well here, joining him here are
Kid Andersen; guitar, also featured are; keyboards;
Chris Burns, Derrick D’Mar Martin; drums and percussion and Joe Kyle Jr.; bass.

The horns are provided by Michael Peloquin; tenor saxophone, Doug Rowan;
baritone saxophone and on trombone is Mike Rinta. On ‘Bad Santa’, which is a very
swinging horn and guitar led Jump Blues, George, considers Santa to be less than

trustworthy with his wife, daughter and dog. ‘Carioca Christmas’, is laced with a
grooving Latin feel that is lifted by Ben Torres flute, as it fuses with George’s lilting
harmonica. Once again, the reindeers are striking and the elves have become

“scabs”, getting up to no good on ‘Reindeer On Strike’, the grooving horns, guitar
and bass underpin a striking harmonica sound. On the jumping blues of ‘War On
Christmas!’ it seems, that Fox News has declared Santa an antagonistic Communist